


Symbiotic

by sarahenany



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 15:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12460875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: Hiccup and Toothless were 'we' long before 'We', just too young to understand it.Just a vignette after Astrid said "Happy Snoggletog!" between the final scene and the tag.





	Symbiotic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TamerLorika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamerLorika/gifts), [siberianchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/siberianchan/gifts).



> Inspired by TamerLorika's "We", from which I stole the concept of 'We' in all its magnificence, and by siberianchan's "Of Terrible Ideas," where I get the Dragonese and the way Astrid and Stormfly are. Seriously, all Stormfly's language she established first and I think it's incredible.
> 
> Whatever's left belongs to Dreamworks, there's half a line in there stolen from the play _Next Time I'll Sing To You,_ and the angst is mine.

Hiccup won’t let Toothless out of his sight throughout the long, rowdy celebrations in the Great Hall. Every time Astrid looks over at him, he’s pressed up so close to his dragon it’s like he wants to weld himself to his side. Toothless is worse, if anything, twining himself around his skinny human, wrapping his tail around his waist and snaking in and out of the crowd to rub the length of his side against Hiccup’s legs, tripping up so many Vikings in the process that the villagers finally give both of them a wide berth. Neither Hiccup nor Toothless notices. Like many of the villagers who have dragons, they’re too wrapped up in their own reunion.

Is it only Astrid who notices, or… “Are they okay?” Fishlegs asks her tentatively, coming up behind her, Meatlug and her babies hovering behind him like a line of giant bumblebees.

Yeah, it’s not just her. While she and Stormfly have had a joyous reunion, and even Fish and Meatlug, arguably the closest bonded pair next to Hiccup and Toothless, have been happily nuzzling each other all evening, Hiccup and Toothless are shadowed by a quality that she can only call grief. After the joy of their initial reunion, it’s almost visible beneath the surface of their smiles, in the desperate way they touch each other, as though to ward off some unimaginable sorrow. It seems… more _adult_ than their – or at least Hiccup’s – age, Astrid thinks, somehow. More like the adults in the village who have lost family.

 _Soul wound,_ chirps Stormfly behind her.

Astrid turns. She’s only been studying Dragonese for a couple of months, but the words are quite clear. Dragonese doesn’t have interjections like “What?” and although she could conceivably say it in Norse, she prefers to try and keep the conversation in Stormfly’s tongue. _Explain?_

Stormfly tilts her head in that endearing way that reminds Astrid of a parrot. _Astrid sad, Stormfly away. But Astrid…_ Stormfly appeared to be searching for words. _Find life._

Her Dragonese isn’t up to this. “Um. You mean I found ways to console myself while you weren’t here?”

Her friend’s birdlike head bobs – a gesture she’s picked up from humans. _Yes… but_ chirp-pop-squawk-rattle.

“Sorry, girl,” Astrid says, meeting Stormfly’s eyes. “I need more language lessons before I can get that.”

Stormfly doesn’t _look_ wise – a trait that has many underestimating her. She takes a moment to think. _No Toothless, Hiccup dead. No Hiccup, Toothless dead._

“Stormfly—”

_Not kill-dead. Inside. Life inside, dead. Dam-lose-hatchlings dead._

“Grief,” Astrid breathes. A thought strikes her. “Hey, where are _your_ hatchlings?”

Stormfly gestures to the fold of her wing, chirring in amusement. _Humans say… bedtime?_

Astrid smiles in relief. “That’s okay, then.” Her eyes are drawn back to Hiccup and Toothless, still rubbing up against each other like a pair of dragons trying to scent-mark. “But Stormfly, they’re together now. It should be okay, right? Why are they still…?”

_Trust-wound. Soul-wound._

Astrid gathers her Dragonese. _Sorry, Stormfly. Astrid not-understand. Astrid Stormfly together. No wound. Astrid understand, Stormfly go eggs, hatchlings._ She smiles, gesturing at where the little ones are nestling under Stormfly’s wing. _Must mate, happy, good. Before sad,_ she added, _much sad yes, but now happy-good. Why Hiccup and Toothless wounded?_

 _Not…_ Astrid can see Stormfly thinking how to phrase this. _Astrid Stormfly friends. Not ‘we’._

 _We?_ Astrid recognizes the term, but there is an inflection to it that leads her to think it means something else in context. _Explain please?_

 _Two halves. Hiccup half of Toothless. Toothless half of Hiccup. Die apart._ The Nadder tilts her head at them. _Stupid males. Stormfly think… Stormfly think they not know._

Here, Astrid’s on safe ground, and she attempts a smile in the face of this frightening knowledge. “Yeah, _guys_ …”

 _Dangerous. Very dangerous._ A hatchling lets out a sleepy squawk under the bright wing, and Stormfly’s head disappears for a moment, calming it. When she comes out, she looks from Astrid to the Night Fury and his human. She shakes her head. _**They** think friends. **Not** friends. Astrid Stormfly friends. Toothless Hiccup ‘We.’ _

“Okay. But what’s the difference?”

 _Friends too long apart? Sad, very sad. 'We' too long apart? Heart die. Heart-fire die. Soul die._ She tilts her head at Astrid. _Very strong love. Very dangerous. Must feed it._

“Feed it?” Astrid’s completely lapsed into Human speech and thought patterns now, but Stormfly is forgiving. She must see how befuddled Astrid is.

 _Yes. Love needs feeding or…_ Stormfly’s visibly looking for words. _Starving love will – will eat – ‘We’ soul._

That sounds worrying. “Eat their soul?”

_Yes. Eating less. Resting more. Then die. Body die._

Astrid shudders. “How do you feed it?”

 _Food is… love, touch, scent-mark, together… together- **ness**. _ The familiar human word is clearly a coinage in Dragonese. _Also mating._

“Mating?” Astrid squeaks, only realizing when heads turn toward her that she’s still in the Great Hall. Luckily, with the dragons just back from their mating flight, eggshells littering the town square and hatchlings all over every available surface, everyone assumes that Stormfly is educating her on the finer points of how to make dragon babies.

 _Not all pairs mating. Different bonded pairs feed different. But must feed._ She tilts her birdlike head towards the little human and his Night Fury, still rubbing and touching like they’ll die if they stop – and, Astrid realizes with a pang, that may be more than just a metaphor. _Toothless too long apart from Hiccup, no reason, no goodbye. Like betrayal._

“They’d never—”

 _Of **course**_ _they would never! **True** betrayal, betrayal that break ‘We’ – death comes fast. Two, three days, a week._

Astrid stares. “Humans don’t die from betrayal,” she says slowly. “Our hearts break. But we don’t die.”

_Dragons die._

“Toothless,” Astrid whispers, looking at the Night Fury, half-hidden behind tables and chairs and revelers, wondering if he flew away because he thought Hiccup no longer wanted him. If he thought Hiccup had betrayed him. He’s licking Hiccup, who is not only laughing and allowing it, he looks half-ready to pounce on Toothless and start licking the dragon himself. She grimaces, trying to clear her head of images of Toothless dying alone of a broken heart somewhere out at sea.

Stormfly clucks to get her attention. _Not only Toothless. Hiccup like dragon, inside. Hiccup heart like dragon. Hiccup die too if Toothless betray him._

“Toothless would never betray him,” Astrid murmurs, still watching the strangely hypnotic way the pair twines around each other. Not for the first time, she recognizes the difference, the symbiosis.

“‘We,’” she says slowly, trying it out. Then she says it in the explosive Dragonese way she’s heard it from Stormfly. _We._ She’s a warrior, but when she looks at the two of them, she’s never felt less like making war in her life.

Astrid dunks her hands in a bowl of water and smoothes them over Stormfly’s hide, grinning and half-purring at her. “Guess plain old ‘we’ will have to make sure they’re okay, won’t we, Stormfly?”

Stormfly purrs her approval, nuzzling Astrid in the way that tells her she’s done something right. _Astrid good see. See Toothless-Hiccup love-hunger-danger. Often humans not see._

Looking round the roomful of cheerful Vikings, Astrid has to agree. Stoick and Gobber are clapping each other on the back, congratulating each other on a wonderful celebration. The twins, Snotlout, everyone else except Fishlegs, are all too caught up in the festivities to notice. "Yeah," she says.

_Hiccup, Toothless also, stupid egg-for-brains dragon, feel but not see. They… now they very much danger. Too long apart. Too much fear that love dead, in Hiccup’s heart, in Toothless’ heart. Soul-wound. Dangerous to break ‘we’. They not know danger, stupid, but feel it inside. They feel death near, too near._

Astrid hates being afraid. Hates more that there are things she can’t fix with a well-placed axe. “What can they do?”

_They do. See._

“You mean what they’re already doing?”

 _Yes. And more._ Stormfly tilts her head and croons. _Must keep…_ She thinks visibly. _Close to your heart._

* * *

The ominous words “death is near” keep Astrid hovering around the pair for the rest of the night, running interference when she sees well-meaning villagers linger too long after thanking Hiccup and wishing Toothless a happy holiday. She lets Stormfly handle the dragons, butting them aside and shooing them out of the path of the bonded pair. Astrid doesn’t know when she started thinking of them as that. She can see the glimpses of residual grief through their smiles and horsing around, see the way they gravitate to one another and cling on, needy and desperate, then stumble, as if something’s not right. Then Toothless swings around that wonderful tail Hiccup made for him, and glares at it. Hiccup doesn’t notice, and it puts them just a hair out of sync.

Eventually, the Vikings start to trail off home – or stagger, as the case may be. Toothless and Hiccup descend the steps of the Great Hall, and Hiccup, of course, slips on the ice. Toothless dives beneath him, entire body slipping beneath Hiccup’s so that Hiccup ends up lying on him.

“You don’t have to do that, Toothless.” Hiccup’s voice echoes through the night air, and Astrid frowns. He always, always just thanks the dragon when he does that. Toothless has noticed it, too, turning back and fixing worried green eyes on Hiccup.

 _They should talk?_ Astrid asks Stormfly, tilting her head to add _maybe?_

 _Not-know._ Stormfly shakes her head as if there’s something flying around her ears. _Hurts._

“What hurts?” Astrid can’t help lapsing into her own tongue. “You okay?”

_Stormfly body, yes. Dragons hurt seeing broken We, seeing soul-wound. Deep. Hurts._

Astrid follows the pair with her eyes. Hiccup is walking slowly and carefully on the ice. She’s never thought of him as disabled before. But she supposes she never realized just how much of his confidence came from the inner trust that there’d always be someone there to catch him when he fell.

And Toothless? Toothless is dragging his lovely new tail in the dirt. He looks naked without his saddle. It’s just a lozenge of leather at the back of his neck, but seeing it not there makes Astrid realize how proudly he wore it. Like a badge of honor, or a shield.

A shield against loneliness. Astrid chills, and it has nothing to do with the freezing temperatures on Berk.

 _Ride me,_ Stormfly says with sudden need.

Astrid lets Stormfly decant the hatchlings into the crook of her arm, then swings up into her saddle, wrapping her arms around her friend’s birdlike neck. “I trust you, Stormfly,” she feels the need to say.

 _Yes._ Stormfly spreads her wings, and they are airborne. _Yes yes yes yes yes._

The gloomy precipitation has given way to a crisp, moonlit night, white-pillowed snow-village lying beneath the silver moonlight as bright and clear as a jewel. Stormfly breaks clear of the earth’s pull and bursts up into the sky over Berk, going higher and higher and higher. Far below, in the shadows, Astrid can just see the land-bound dots of Hiccup and Toothless, slowly heading home. Her heart aches. “I trust you, I trust you,” she murmurs into her friend’s neck-scales. She cuddles Stormfly’s babies closer and wraps an arm round her neck.

Stormfly croons. _Stormfly not let Astrid fall._

Astrid smiles into her scales. _Astrid not let Stormfly fall also._

She puts the two dorks – well, one if you count a matching cross-species pair of dorks as a single ‘We’ – out of her mind for now. Time enough to stage an intervention if they don’t get their act together later.


End file.
